- WhiteBird -

- Chapter Four - Karr

To remember, is something many take for granted.

See, no one is subjected to the endless battle that he had been in his whole life. Shut down at the touch of button, straining to remember who he was as the years raced past in his stupor.

He had finally, through an extreme amount of effort, remembered the basics of what he was supposed to.

He had long suffered from an illness, so to speak, it ate at his mind, his memory, his personality. It freed the monster he became known as.

Karr was no monster though. He had been created to help mankind, and Casey was his last shot at proving himself capable of good.

Karr sat under the splotchy shade of an oak tree that, like him, had seen better days.

His amber colored scanner swished slowly from left to right, and he thought deeply about why he hadn't awaken much sooner.

He was meant to activate the moment Casey had received him. It was his promised duty to protect the kid. Protect him from an evil that his parents had tried dearly to protect him from.

Evils could pass on through the generations, like money it weakened.. but still it lingered.

She had been deathly afraid to lose him, to see him suffer as she had.

Karr ran diagnostics on himself endlessly, trying to find the flaw that would not allow him to remember anything other than the basics of his mission; Protect Casey.

He felt it stir inside him, the answers, but he was only as good as his creator, and he was subjected to not being allowed to remember anything someone didn't want him to.

It was a tricky process, and only an experienced hand could do it. To take away little bits of memory so that he couldn't see the whole image.

Karr was an intelligent being. He understood human ways, human emotions. He could figure out the logic behind most decisions, both rational and irrational.

If his memory was still hazy, it was because someone didn't want him to know everything, and it was for Casey's safety. Karr could never tell the boy what he did not know. Not that he intended on making his conscious known.

It would be an incredibly tricky thing to do, showing someone that a car could talk, drive on its own, think for itself.

Karr wasn't good at everything. He could read emotions, understand, relate. He wasn't good with trying to reveal himself.

Most panicked, freaked, or thought themselves going insane.

You could not reason with a confused, panicked, and surprised human. No sir.

Mission impossible.

He would protect Casey, lay low. Wait silently for as long as he could. Protect Casey from exactly what or who though?, he couldn't help but think. Speeding tickets?

Karr had a lot of practice not talking. In fact there had been years go by that he hadn't said a single word aloud once.

He thought most people wasted words. Used too many, too much, too fast.

Life was a fast lane, yes, but you could take a few rest stops along the way. Most people were driving much too fast to ever notice them.

It was like when people took a vacation, they left home, bags stacked and packed high, with daydreams of sunny beaches and relaxing, put people were never busier than when they were on vacation. They had to do, do, do, do everything. They passed what it meant to live right by, by just trying to live.